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By Root 330 0

good, but how do you put them into practice? Although some homeschoolers may find a particular theory exactly fits their needs and beliefs, most will pick and choose from a variety of ideas and develop a routine specifically to suit their own family. Often the process takes some time, and the routine is adjusted as children grow and new interests and abilities develop. Homeschoolers often take several years to realize that finding a routine that works is really an ongoing process and that what works when a child is six can be cumbersome and counterproductive at ten or thirteen.

Often families who start out with a fairly rigid structure find themselves becoming more relaxed and flexible as they grow more comfortable with homeschooling, whereas those who began with an informal and casual style may discover the need for more structure. Sometimes structure for a specific topic or two, such as math, is enough, and everything else is learned more casually.

Let’s consider some typical structures for homeschooling. I’ll briefly describe each, along with some of the advantages and drawbacks, and then, in the next few chapters, we’ll look at some examples of how they work for some real homeschooling families.

“School-at-Home”

This is the approach most people assume when they hear talk of homeschooling and it is the one most like traditional school. Children usually have a set schedule and assignments each day, and their work is evaluated and graded. The family may purchase and use a packaged curriculum, which comes complete with textbooks and assignments, along with grading and record-keeping services. Or the parents may put together the curriculum themselves, selecting textbooks, preparing lesson plans, and testing and grading all on their own. Although school-at-home can require several hours of work daily by the student, the time is still likely to be considerably less than would be required in school, because little or no classroom management is required to deal with the children of a single family.

Advantages

With its close resemblance to traditional schools, this approach is familiar and easy for most people to understand.

Tasks and responsibilities are clear-cut and straightforward.

Evaluation, usually in the traditional form of letter grades, is easy and in terms easily grasped by school officials if and when a child opts to attend school.

A complete packaged curriculum relieves the parents of much research and planning and of worry that some important topics might be missed.

Some families like using a grading service because it keeps family relationships out of the grading process.

Drawbacks

A packaged curriculum is often rigid and inflexible and may make no allowances for differing interests and abilities.

Assignments can be dull and repetitious, and students can develop “motivation” problems and resist completing schoolwork.

With a set amount of work to be covered during the school year, the student may have insufficient free time to explore any topics in depth.

If parents are doing their own curriculum development and lesson plans, they may have to work several hours each day preparing the next day’s lessons. If the family has several children, the work load is multiplied accordingly. With varying ages of children, there may be little in the educational program that could be shared among them.

School-at-home can be the most expensive homeschooling option, especially if you purchase a complete package and discover it does not work for you and your family.

Some families who differentiate the roles of parent and teacher have trouble keeping the two functions separate.

Unit Studies

Unit studies, like so much else to do with homeschooling, vary enormously according to who is using them. Unit studies can be more or less formal, more or less lengthy, more or less comprehensive. Basically, the idea is to use some topic of interest as a jumping-off point for a complete “unit of study.” For example, if your daughter sees a TV program on dinosaurs and wants to learn more about